RSS Taking the Rossmont Mover pump for a spin

The Rossmont Mover is very interesting *propeller water pump from the new Italian aquarium product company, Rossmont. Built from a tried and true two-bladed propeller design, the Rossmont Mover was built from the ground up with no legacy influences, and a focus on performance, silence, efficiency, and a real eye for style.

The rising popularity of prop pumps over powerheads as primary circulation devices in our aquariums brought with it an onslaught of ugly, grey boxes that arguably did the job, but were also really unsightly to look at. From the beginning Rossmont took great care when designing their Mover pump to create something that would be unobtrusive, and the parts you did see would actually be pleasing.

A low profile internal magnet, coupled with a very short and integrated ball mount means that the Rossmont Mover has a very small surface area when viewed in profile. Everything about the Rossmont Mover is designed to be smaller, and less noticeable, and even the super sleek prefilter ‘basket’ is integrated around the body of the pump for a very appealing, seamless look.

When we first fired up our sample Rossmont Mover 1500 (renamed for the US market) rated for 1500 gph, 5800 liter per hour, we were initially very surprised by the sheer lack of flow. Then we noticed that the bare pump is not equipped with the “concentrating ring” which helps to focus the water flow.

With the 120 degree field of flow, the water is very turbulent and there is quite a lack of “mass water movement” helping to create gyres and modern water moving techniques. It wasn’t until we added the secondary shroud to focus the flow to a 60 degree angle that the force of 1500 gallons per hour could adequately be felt.

Even then, the amount of water flow that the Rossmont Mover 1500 puts out is not altogether impressive, but on par with the better models of basic propeller pumps like the Korallia and NanoStreams while sipping a measly 13 watts. The closest pump in our arsenal that we had to compare to the Rossmont 1500 is the Cobalt Aquatics NeoFlow, the latter being rated at about 2600 gph while the former is rated at 1500 gph, so there exists some discrepancy in how the pumps are being formally rated.

*After weeks of running the Rossmont Mover 1500, the pump is still incredibly silent. If the pump does make some sound, its noise level is easily obscured by the regular sounds of the aquarium and this is probably the go-to pump we’ll recommend for aquarists who keep a reef tank in their bedroom or other sound-sensitive locations.

When the Rossmont does become available from SeaSide Aquatics it is expected to retail for about $135. Compared to the Tunze Electronic 6065 $141 and the NeoFlow’s $142, this is not much of a savings, especially considering both of those models are also controllable. But if you’re looking for an attractive pump in a small package that you will probably never hear, we think that we’ll be seeing a lot more of the Rossmont Mover pumps in America and abroad.